Philippe Entremont had his first lessons in music from his parents; his father was a conductor of the Strasbourg Opera orchestra, and his mother a pianist and teacher. From the age of eight he studied privately with the retired Marguerite Long, a period of teaching which he found ‘oppressive’, as well as with Rose Aye. At the age of twelve Entremont won the Harriet Cohen International Piano Medal and began lessons at the Paris Conservatoire with Jean Doyen. Whilst at the Paris Conservatoire he won a premier prix for both piano and chamber music. Entremont made his public debut at the age of sixteen in Barcelona while continuing his studies at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1951 he entered the Marguerite Long–Jacques Thibaud International Competition where he won fifth prize and the following year he gained a disappointing tenth placing at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium. However, a year after that, at the age of nineteen, Entremont won the Marguerite Long–Jacques Thibaud International Competition which led to him being selected to tour America on an exchange programme organised by the Jeunesses Musicales de France. In fact, the first prize at the Marguerite Long–Jacques Thibaud International Competition was not awarded in the piano class of 1953, and Entremont tied for second place with Eugene Malinin.

Entremont made his recital debut in the USA at the National Gallery in Washington, and the following day performed in New York’s Carnegie Hall with the National Orchestral Association and Leon Barzin, giving the American première of the Piano Concerto by André Jolivet. He toured America again in 1955, and in 1956 made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy, a partnership that was to prove particularly fruitful. They gave over one hundred concerts together and the best of Entremont’s recordings are with these forces. From the start Entremont was popular in the United States, and the numerous recordings he made for Columbia/CBS helped his career immeasurably.

Although Entremont was building his reputation on the virtuoso Romantic works for piano and orchestra, for his London debut, made at the age of twenty-three, he chose to play Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major Op. 58. He received good reviews, summed up by one critic as, ‘All in all, it was a performance rich in promise.’

Entremont spent the 1960s and 1970s performing and recording, but from the mid-1970s he concentrated more on conducting. He has been guest conductor with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and many of the other American orchestras. Entremont now performs at many of the summer festivals as a conductor, including the Mostly Mozart Festival at Avery Fisher Hall and those at Santander and Schleswig-Holstein. He has been music director of orchestras in many parts of the world including New Orleans, Israel, Vienna, Denver and Holland.

Entremont spent the 1960s and 1970s performing and recording, but from the mid-1970s he concentrated more on conducting. He has been guest conductor with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and many of the other American orchestras. Entremont now performs at many of the summer festivals as a conductor, including the Mostly Mozart Festival at Avery Fisher Hall and those at Santander and Schleswig-Holstein. He has been music director of orchestras in many parts of the world including New Orleans, Israel, Vienna, Denver and Holland.

At the beginning of his career Entremont’s repertoire was based around the virtuoso Romantic concertos by composers such as Liszt, Grieg, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Saint-Saëns. His American connections also led him to play works by Gershwin, Stravinsky, Bernstein and Jolivet whose Piano Concerto he promoted. Being French, he played a good deal of Satie, Debussy and Ravel, but also Dohnányi, Richard Strauss, César Franck and Bartók. In 1980 he was reported as wishing to play more Schumann, but said, ‘I hate Scriabin – he bores me. I call it “piano music for the deaf!” ’ Throughout his career Entremont has played the music of Mozart, and as early as 1962 played two of the piano concertos in London with Harry Blech and the London Mozart Players.

Entremont recorded a large amount for Columbia from the late 1950s onwards, including much of the solo output of Chopin, Debussy and Ravel. Concerto recordings include the complete piano concertos by Saint-Saëns with the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse and Michel Plasson made in the late 1970s. Earlier recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy include excellent performances of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concertos No. 1 in F sharp minor Op. 1, No. 4 in G minor Op. 40 and the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini Op. 43, as well as Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concertos No. 2 in G minor Op. 22 and No. 4 in C minor Op. 44. Less successful are the Liszt concertos, recorded in 1959, where Entremont is rather brash and matter-of-fact, but he has fun with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in their 1967 recording of Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Again with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Entremont recorded Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor Op. 18 and the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini Op. 43 as well as Bernstein’s own Symphony No. 2 ‘The Age of Anxiety’. Entremont recorded the Piano Concerto by Stravinsky with the composer conducting, and with the Cleveland Orchestra and Pierre Boulez recorded both concertos by Ravel in the early 1970s. From the late 1970s comes an interesting recording of Saint-Saëns’s Le Carnaval des Animaux, where Entremont is joined by pianist Gaby Casadesus and the other instrumental parts are played by soloists with a single cello, viola and two violins forming the string section.

Later recordings show Entremont as conductor, but for Teldec in 1981 he recorded ten piano concertos by Haydn plus two divertimenti for piano and strings with his Vienna Chamber Orchestra.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — Jonathan Summers (A–Z of Pianists, Naxos 8.558107–10).